Greta Honold and Tom Hardy/Photo: Liz Lauren

Expectations were especially high for the world premiere of Brett C. Leonard’s “The Long Red Road” at the Goodman, thanks to the Chicago directing debut of Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the casting of rising British film and stage star Tom Hardy in a leading role written for him. And I am pleased to say that the set and lighting design meet those expectations, with the Owen Theatre converted by Eugene Lee into a sprawling thrust stage that squeezes right up to the audience, devouring seats and eliminating the opportunity to establish any distance from the tortuous fare unfolding upon it. It’s a magnificent fusion of two separate households headed by two brothers in two separate states (literally and metaphorically), including not only bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens, but also their places of occupation, a barn and a bar, respectively, the latter where the alcoholic brother Sam spends much of his time communing with the bartender. The homes are interconnected, and characters pass each other like ghosts, suggesting the invisible ties that perpetually bind, even strangle, families. And Edward Pierce’s lighting design is a simple marvel; lamps, across the vast stage, turn on and off to signal the flow of action; the beginning and the end of scenes on a set with no boundaries.

If only the play lived up to its setting, or even its opening, where the audience is greeted by the characters Sam and Annie enjoying a graphic and vigorous shag. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the press release from the Goodman:

MARY ZIMMERMAN REIMAGINES BERNSTEIN’S CANDIDE IN A MAJOR FALL MUSICAL EVENT;
ROBERT FALLS RE-EXAMINES CHEKHOV’S THE SEAGULL; PLUS NEW WORKS BY SARAH RUHL,
REGINA TAYLOR AND THOMAS BRADSHAW HEADLINE GOODMAN THEATRE’S 2010/2011 SEASON

***THE GOODMAN CELEBRATES A DECADE OF ACHIEVEMENTS AS ANCHOR OF THE NORTH LOOP

THEATRE DISTRICT, STARTING WITH A SEPT. 27 EVENT AT THE ART INSTITUTE’S MODERN WING*** Read the rest of this entry »

Krapp's Last Tape/Photo: Liz Lauren

RECOMMENDED

The constant level of high-quality theater to be had on both the Equity and non-Equity levels in Chicago is nothing short of astonishing, to be sure, but every now and then a performance comes along that manages to stand in a class all by itself. Such is the case with the double-bill of two one-act masterpieces by two fascinatingly different yet similarly iconic twentieth-century playwrights of Irish descent, Eugene O’Neill and Samuel Beckett, performed by a single extraordinary Irish-American actor—Brian Dennehy—who came up with the inspired idea of pairing and performing these two works together.

The Dennehy/O’Neill alliance originated under Robert Falls at Goodman nearly a quarter of a century ago and climaxed with last season’s O’Neill Festival which spotlighted the Dennehy/O’Neill/Falls “Desire Under the Elms.” In fact, Dennehy and Falls actually presented “Hughie”—a forty-minute work O’Neill wrote during the period of his greatest genius at the end of his life as part of a planned series of short plays that became a rara avis when he destroyed the other entries—just six years ago, at that time simply allowing it to stand on its own.

That experience proved inadequate enough that Dennehy began experimenting with adding another one-act to be paired with “Hughie” at other venues, initially settling upon a comedic Sean O’Casey opus that Falls came and saw and thought was a mismatch that trivialized O’Neill. It was Dennehy who finally came up with “Krapp’s Last Tape,” a forty-five-minute Samuel Beckett work also from the period of his greatest genius, as a bookend for “Hughie,” and that configuration was presented two summers ago at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, with Falls directing “Hughie,” Canadian director Jennifer Tarver helming “Krapp’s Last Tape” and Dennehy in both. A huge success, that experience has been enlarged and brought to Chicago, with New York and national tour aspirations. Read the rest of this entry »

Jennifer Tarver/Photo: Liz Lauren

This week Goodman opens its highly anticipated marriage of two one-acts about aging, regret and mourning lost choices:  Eugene O’Neill’s “Hughie” and Samuel Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape.” The lineup of artists involved is formidable: Robert Falls continues his collaboration with Brian Dennehy in “Hughie,” who plays against Joe Grifasi in this play about the ways we deceive ourselves in order to go on. This act about the tragedy of “just going on” culminates in “Krapp’s Last Tape,” Beckett’s masterpiece of a one-man show about an aging performer who confronts his early self through recorded diaries that painfully chronicle a lost love. “Krapp’s Last Tape” relies on the contrast between the youthful hope in the tapes and the decayed abjection of older Krapp—also played by Dennehy and directed by Toronto-based director Jennifer Tarver.

Tarver, who directed Dennehy in the play at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival two years ago, is no Beckett newbie. She garnered acclaim for her curation of five Beckett shorts in 2006, and with a background in music as well as dramaturgy, she’s an easy match for the musicality and rhythm of Beckett’s prose. Newcity talked with Tarver the week before previews about space, composition and the demands of directing Beckett. Read the rest of this entry »

The Addams Family at The Oriental/Photo: Samuel Adams

By Brian Hieggelke

As the wind blows the snow sideways this December evening, the weatherman is telling Chicagoans to stay bunkered; the deserted downtown streets reflect their obedience. All save the sidewalk near the intersection of State and Randolph, as TV crews jockey for faces on the red carpet in front of the Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, where more than 2,000 patrons, including a who’s who of backstage Broadway, are gathering for the world premiere of a new musical featuring a AAA list of talent, onstage and off. “The Addams Family,” with multiple Tony winners Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth in its leads, a book from the librettists of “Jersey Boys” and so on, is certainly Broadway bound, but tonight—tonight—Chicago is the center of theater in the world.

That’s the story of Chicago theater in the zeroes: the decade in which it grew up and got big. Whether it’s the launch and monumental success of Broadway In Chicago, the maturation and astonishing quality of a remarkable number of small and mid-sized companies or the increasing demand for Chicago product and Chicago talent on Broadway, Chicago theater has fully come into its own. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2006/07 season brought the grand opening of the new Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, following more than $11 million in renovations

Annoyance Theatre (founded 1987)
“We don’t really have a regular operating budget—just plan as we go along.”
—Jennifer Estlin, President, Annoyance Theatre

The Artistic Home (founded 1998)
End of nineties: $62,000
End of zeroes: $164,500

Bailiwick Chicago (founded 2009)
End of nineties: N/A (Bailiwick Repertory is now defunct)
End of zeroes: $120,000 projected 2010

Chicago Dramatists (founded 1979)
End of nineties: $171,000
End of zeroes: $550,000

Collaboraction (founded 1996)
End of nineties: $50,000
End of zeroes: $500,000

Court Theatre (founded 1955)
End of nineties: $2.6 million
End of zeroes: $3.2 million Read the rest of this entry »

2000

Milestones

500 Clown, Steep Theatre, the side project and Teatro Luna are founded

Broadway In Chicago launches as a joint venture between Live Nation and the Nederlander Organization

Goodman departs its original home in the Art Institute of Chicago and moves into $51 million new digs in the North Loop

Chicago Shakespeare moves into a $24 million theater on Navy Pier

Collaboraction produces its first Sketchbook

The City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs opens The Storefront Theater

Passings

Michael Maggio, Goodman Theatre Associate Artistic Director and Dean of The Theatre School at DePaul University Read the rest of this entry »

Francis Guinan and Tracy Letts/Photo: Michael Brosilow

This is one of those groundbreaking plays—not just for Chicago, but American theater—that makes a remount particularly anxiety-provoking. Chicago native David Mamet wrote “American Buffalo” in 1975, and it premiered at The Goodman in a production that helped put both on the map. Mamet has gone on to an illustrious stage and film career, and “American Buffalo” has what are now his unmistakable calling cards: strikingly vulgar dialogue, usually in the form of long tragi-comic tirades, circling around questions of masculinity, power and identity. The plot is a simple, tight three-actor format centering around the ill-fated heist of a rare American Buffalo nickel by three generations of white male American losers. Amy Morton’s direction is astute but conservative; she’s clearly trying to hit all the original notes. But while Tracy Letts carries the show as the desperate misanthropic Teach, the way Francis Guinan and Patrick Andrews play their parts—the bumbling junk-shop owner and dependent young ex-junkie he’s adopted—feel one-dimensional. (Andrews takes on a strange stilted monotone that’s especially distracting.) Their limited performances mirror the play as a whole, which feels more like a fossil than a relevant work of art. (Monica Westin)

At Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 1650 N. Halsted, (312)335-1650. Through February 7.

Penelope Walker, John Babbo and Caroline Heffernan/Photo: Liz Lauren

RECOMMENDED

“I pay him a just wage,” defends Larry Yando’s Scrooge to the Ghost of Christmas Present (Penelope Walker) as the pair is eavesdropping on the Cratchits’ meager holiday feast which Tiny Tim (John Babbo) alone could easily devour in a single swoop.  “What is a just wage?” retorts the Ghost.  “What the market will bear,” says Scrooge.  And there you have it: Ebenezer Scrooge is a Republican.

It is easy to forget that Charles Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol” primarily as an attack on self-righteous Victorian social justice, but with the entire country embroiled in a bitter debate about who actually “deserves” healthcare among the millions who cannot afford it this holiday season, lines such as “Are you to decide who is to live and die?” and “If they would rather die, let them do so and decrease the surplus population,” resonate with biting sting as more socially relevant than ever.  Ironically, Dickens’ challenge to the heart of the heartlessness of his own era helped set England on a trajectory towards national healthcare, which means Tiny Tim would get the treatment that he needs today in England, though not in America. Read the rest of this entry »

Keith Kupferer, Rengin Altay, Max Zuppa and Ian Paul Custer/Photo: Liz Lauren

In “A Serious Man,” the Coen Brothers return to their Midwestern Jewish roots to examine the conundrums created by their religion and culture. With humor and humanity, they inject life into tired stereotypes. “High Holidays” playwright Alan Gross could take a page from their book.

It’s 1963 in Iroquois, Illinois, a small-town Jewish enclave. Bar Mitzvah boy Billy (Max Zuppa) can’t memorize his torah portion, and collegiate brother Bobby (Ian Paul Custer) returns with upsetting demands for parents Nate (Keith Kupferer) and Essie (Rengin Altay).

The overlong first act is crammed with Yiddishisms and pop-culture references in a desperate attempt to establish setting. The shrill characters start out one-dimensional and stay that way for an hour and fifteen minutes. Subsequently, the stereotypes soften and we are shown, rather than told, the characters’ reasoning. If the first half had the second act’s humanity, this could be a really great piece. (Lisa Buscani)

“High Holidays” plays at the Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn, (312)443-3800, through November 29.